Great site you’ve got here. I Googled “ehow has the worst articles” to see if anyone agreed and your site popped up. People need to know how shitty the articles on eHow are. You can damage things or hurt yourself, etc – like you said “nobody tries it before writing it”. Misinformation is worse than no information.

She begins by telling you to wear cotton gloves to handle film negatives. Mind you negatives have _thin_ layers of gelatin on them (yes, gelatin like ‘Jell-O’), the slightest ‘bump’ can scratch a negative. She continues on saying to use a paintbrush to sweep the film. If that wasn’t bad enough, her last suggestion is using ACETONE. I nearly lost my mind when I saw that. Picture an exploding firey missile being shot through a piece of tissue paper… Acetone eats through plastic in a heartbeat!

Yes, these methods will clean film —- clean it right off the Earth!
I think I’ll now officially block eHow results from appearing on Google and add them to my hosts file. Enough’s enough.

See the archived version here when eHow reads this post and removes the article.

]]>https://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/how-to-clean-old-black-and-white-negatives-and-possibly-destroy-them/feed/2tonethousandHow to Prepare 2 Eggs and a Sausagehttps://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/how-to-prepare-2-eggs-and-a-sausage/
https://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/how-to-prepare-2-eggs-and-a-sausage/#commentsWed, 17 Aug 2011 19:12:43 +0000http://worstofehow.wordpress.com/?p=224Imagine if you looked up information on “How to Plan a 6th Grade Graduation Breakfast” and you got this instead:

]]>https://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/how-to-prepare-2-eggs-and-a-sausage/feed/4tonethousandminotaur penisHow to Plan a 6th Grade Graduation Breakfast - eHow.comHow to Quit Your Job at eHowhttps://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/how-to-quit-your-job-at-ehow/
https://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/how-to-quit-your-job-at-ehow/#commentsTue, 16 Aug 2011 22:54:24 +0000http://worstofehow.wordpress.com/?p=208This one was actually up for a few hours. Sadly Demand Media deleted it pretty fast. Guess they still read this blog. Check out the last paragraph.

]]>https://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/how-to-quit-your-job-at-ehow/feed/3tonethousandFive Year Olds CrystaI Science Fair Project -Behind the Scenes at eHow Pt. II: TL;DRhttps://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/behind-the-scenes-ehow-pt-ii-tldr-will-charpentier/
https://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/behind-the-scenes-ehow-pt-ii-tldr-will-charpentier/#commentsTue, 16 Aug 2011 19:08:24 +0000http://worstofehow.wordpress.com/?p=201If you want to know why eHow articles are so bad, it’s because the writers spend more time writing their notes explaining their crappy writing than they do writing the article.

My favorite writer comment out of this manifesto is, “I disagree with AP about calling boats ‘it’ (see Item 3, above) and have written around that offensive pronoun insofar as is possible.” Seriously, who cares?

I also like the logic here: “I chose the slant of the article because of my extensive experience. If you disagree with the slant of the article, see the DMS Editorial Guidelines. If you disagree with the Guidelines, see the Content Curators.” In other words, I wrote this because I said so, and the rules say I can say so.

Click the image to see it in all its glory. The CE’s comment sums up the eHow editing process.

Correction: An earlier version of this post stated that Will was not a real captain. Will is a real mothah fuckin’ cap’n’. We regret any confusion that this may have caused.

]]>https://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/behind-the-scenes-ehow-pt-ii-tldr-will-charpentier/feed/10tonethousandwill charpentierBehind the Scenes: How eHow Works — or Doesn’thttps://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/behind-the-scenes-how-ehow-works-or-doesnt/
https://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/behind-the-scenes-how-ehow-works-or-doesnt/#commentsMon, 15 Aug 2011 19:41:18 +0000http://worstofehow.wordpress.com/?p=184Someone just sent me this lovely screen cap that gives you a good idea of why eHow’s content is so shitty. The image is from an editor’s work desk where he’s just published an article. Click on it to take a look — it’s beautiful. The submitter also included a note. Here it is in part:

Basically I figured i was going to get fired abut a month ago from bad performance reviews so I started publishing pretty much anything. Sometimes i sent rewrites using the boilerplates just to Recently I started adding photos that I thought improved the content and links to ur blog. A writer reported me, so I should be fired soon, but it was a good run while is lassted.

]]>https://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/behind-the-scenes-how-ehow-works-or-doesnt/feed/3tonethousandA College Recruiter's Job Description for FootballHow to Make Money in a Trailer Parkhttps://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/how-to-make-money-in-a-trailer-park/
https://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/how-to-make-money-in-a-trailer-park/#commentsThu, 21 Apr 2011 14:47:56 +0000http://worstofehow.wordpress.com/?p=178Sometimes when I watch the brainless money-making schemed employed by Ricky, Julian and Bubbles on Trailer Park boys, I think, “this is prime eHow material right here.”

Apparently I am right.

The sum of the article is this, open up an illegal liquor and cigarette shop out of your trailer.

Many people in trailer parks smoke cigarettes and drink beer. You can profit from this by having a supply of beer and cigarettes available for weekends especially sundays when football is on T.V. Many will not run out to pick up these items but will not mind paying more for them when convienant. Put the word out to the neighbors and let then know you keep beer and cigarettes for resale.

"Living in a trailer park has its advantages, you have access to many homes and people whom all are potential profit centers."

We all know that DMS likes to read this blog. I Assume they look at us as providing free quality control.

Recently, one of Demand’s new employees started reading our blog. I just wanted to welcome Jordan Decker to the Worst of eHow and Demand Media. Jordan joined DMS back in February as Associate Community Support Manager and has been following us for about two weeks now.

Jordan graduated from UCLA with a BA in study of religion and a minor in LGBT studies in 2008. He was a member of the Delta Lambda Phi fraternity and he continues to serve on the national board of directors. Jordan is originally from Cupertino California and currently resides in Encino. He enjoys “night drive paparazzo” photography (you can see his work here) and lolcats.

This article is so damn awesome, I’m just copying the whole thing (sue me DMS).

How to Write Bad Ehow Articles

Why write quality, when you can write a bad e-how article?

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

things you’ll need:

Computer

Instructions

1) Pick a topic. Think of something you’ve never done and don’t know much about.

2) Don’t test it out to see if it works.

3) Don’t do any research on the topic.

4) Write some vague instructions stating only the obvious. Make sure you don’t include enough information to actually complete the task correctly. You get extra points if the instructions seem to be for something other than the title of the article, or the steps are obviously out of order.

5) Repeat the same spamy SEO key words over and over again in every step. For instance: Get rich quick.

6) Don’t spelll chek. Who neads to spel? Spellling is stoopid, espeshialy in the tittle. Get ricch quickk.

7) Uses bad grammar. If it make sense it not have have style. Get a rich quick.

Put photos on every step that add no information to help complete the task. You get extra points if you use obviously copyrighted photos. Don’t put anything in the photo credit field. For goodness sake don’t take your own photos. Get rich quick.

9) Put a completely unrelated affiliate link under resources. Link back to your unrelated blog and your e-book while you’re at it. Get rich quick.

Tips & Warnings

Write as fast as you can.

Type what ever comes into your head

If nothing’s in your head, rip off other people’s work.

If you could hurt yourself following your instructions, don’t use this section.

]]>https://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/how-to-write-bad-ehow-articles/feed/2tonethousandHow to Write Bad Ehow Articles - eHow.comDemand Media Produces Quality Contenthttps://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/demand-media-produces-quality-content/
https://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/demand-media-produces-quality-content/#commentsTue, 29 Mar 2011 22:37:36 +0000http://worstofehow.wordpress.com/?p=145I don’t know about the content of this article. To be honest I just read the part that someone highlighted for me, the tips and warning section which reads:

It appears that the writer included her notes to the copy editor in the body of the article and the copy editor didn’t have the sense to remove them. Good to see that Demand Media is improving their quality.

]]>https://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/demand-media-produces-quality-content/feed/1tonethousandtipsandwarningsHow to Learn Chinesehttps://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/how-to-learn-chinese/
https://worstofehow.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/how-to-learn-chinese/#respondMon, 21 Mar 2011 00:23:08 +0000http://worstofehow.wordpress.com/?p=142Sigh… I mean, I know that all eHow articles are pretty shitty, but usually that’s because the titles are crap. Here’s an example of an article that could be potentially useful and what do I get? Advice on learning Chinese like “watch Chinese movies”.

This article includes five completely incongruent steps.

Step 1: Move to China.

Step 2: Get an apartment in Chinatown.

Seriously, WTF?

But don’t worry, this step by step guide might seem too simple, but the author has categorized the difficulty level as “easy”.